“The outcome was brilliant. It has only been live for under a week and the number of inquiries are going up already”

Marcus Dowling

Managing Director, Rising Connection

Transcription

Liza: So Marcus, thank you so much for taking the time in having this conversation, and I guess sharing your experience in us working together.

Marcus: You’re welcome, Liza.

Liza: I guess maybe we can start up with you sharing what is your company, what do you guys do, who do you serve, what problem do you solve?

Marcus: Sure, our company is Rising Connection and we solve problems with getting people connected out in regional and metropolitan Australia where they need better Internet services than what they’re currently getting. And also, getting better mobile phone coverage indoors and around properties.

Liza: Awesome, of course. So I guess you help others connected when other companies cannot.

Marcus: That’s right. We get you connected when the others can’t.

Liza: There you go, cool. Maybe we can talk about the project, the recent project that came about. Yeah, like how did the project come about, what problem were you trying to solve or what were you trying to achieve?

Marcus: Sure, so we were up to—our website had been up for about two years since its last iteration. And as the company had evolved, the website hadn’t and it became stagnant. So we were ready to have it refreshed, rebranded—well, not so much rebranded, we stayed with the company logo and themes, but we’ve realigned the website now to communicate the message that we want the company to communicate out to the public. And that required a substantial rethink and relook, and it gave us the opportunity to apply some new technologies into our website which was something we’re always open to doing, and we’re very keen on.

Liza: Yeah, cool. So maybe we can just talk about the old site. Like you said, it was a few years old. And the thing is your business has been growing so much.

Marcus: Yeah.

Liza: What was the impact when your website and where you guys were at, you know, there was a bit of mismatch or misaligned. What was the impact of that?

Marcus: Sure. The website that we had out, it was not communicating out to our targeted audience and it wasn’t giving them the information that they need, so people would find out about our company then they’d go to do their due diligence and look on the website and go on. Well, that message doesn’t line up with what I was just talking about with. And I’m not sure that’s really what I want. So we really needed to get that out the more clearly and by doing this, we’ve actually now opened up the company for developing future-specific targets that we can work with. So it’s actually been a really good refresh. It also allows us to shake off some of the old things off the website that were no longer relevant to the business.

Liza: Yeah, exactly cool. So maybe we can talk about the solution itself. So what did you get from us?

Marcus: Sure. So this is now our third iteration of the website and our second version to be done by Content Maximiser which is really great to keep the consistency with yourself Liza and the team. The things we did is we needed to change the theme that we use for our website and that’s—we’re not talking about the front-end theme, we’re talking about the back-end theme that your team and our team interact with to sort of keep content up to date, to be able to revise things, and to improve the way that it behaves in all the different devices that we’re connected from, PCs down to phones and everything in between such as tablets and the like.

Liza: Yeah, and in addition to that, I guess that one of the things that we really look at was the content on the sites and the messaging, wasn’t it?

Marcus: Yeah. Yeah, so we spend a fair bit of time at the start and then everything else it’s built around. So we worked at the three primary areas of focus that we wanted the company to focus in. And we wrote brand-new, fresh content to line up with those and then everything else has been built around it from the way we categorise things in the website to the selection of process to some things we could put up there have been left off, while we deliberately went to the efforts of putting new things up that we hadn’t put up before. So it’s a big job really.

Liza: -yeah, now the new site has. So, okay, cool. Can you maybe just share the process that we work through together and how was that like at your end sitting in your seat ?

Marcus: Sure, well the first thing I had was trust and that was the great thing, sticking with Content Maximiser, so I didn’t have to re-establish the trust in that relationship side of it. The most challenging thing for us was, first of all, Liza had to take me through the process of blocking out what we actually wanted in the website. And then, Liza and her team had to take, myself and the rest of our team, through the process of extracting the information out of us, which was a process in itself. And there’s still a lot more to get out, but the things were in place now to actually let that flow more easily.
And as we now continue on with putting new content into the website over the next 12 months and ongoing, it should be a much more smooth flowing process and not so—if we can use the word “traumatic”—[laughs] on those that need to get the information out, because this then enables all the public and even our team to benefit from the information instead of it being caught up in our heads, it’s now out there.

Liza: Yeah, exactly. And what did you think about the outcome?

Marcus: The outcome was brilliant. I’ve been—even though we’ve only had the website now live for just under a week-

Liza: A few days.

Marcus: Yeah. We’ve been sending out information to our various partners that are involved with us and let them have a look at what we’ve done with the website. We gave them all the heads up about a month before we put the website live, what we’re doing, to see some examples of it, but now they’re actually seeing it’s going—hmm, okay. That’s nice. And I think they’re thinking about what they’re going to do with their own websites.

Liza: [Laughs] Yeah, and the thing is now, the inquiries are coming in, you know, there’s some other one that came through today, I don’t know whether you saw that one.

Marcus: I haven’t been online yet to see it, so it’s been a busy day, but no, that’s amazing. The traction’s already starting to pick up on the website. And the website also now lines up with our new marketing that we’re doing as well. So the style and everything is lining up with our social media, with events that we’re doing, so it’s really, really key. So everything is coming together.

Liza: Yeah, is the messaging, is it so much more concise so that with one aspect from your site now, they go, “I know exactly what these guys do, and yes, I think that they can help me hence the inquiry which we see in the inquiry forms that people are filling in.”

Marcus: Yeah.

Liza: Yeah, cool.

Marcus: And a revamp on the way its working with the back-end has begun now as well which is really cool.

Liza: Yeah, awesome. So, if anyone that is watching this case study, they could be considering redoing their websites. They might think this is going to be a massive project, which it can be, do you have any tips or any ideas that you could share with them that can help them, the things we watch out for if they are thinking about this process themselves?

Marcus: Sure. The first thing you really want to do—and this is where you need a strategic partner like what you do, Liza, with Content Maximiser—is to get clear on what you want your website to do. If you’re not 100% clear, then spend some time blocking it out and get a definitive answer into sort of what you want, because otherwise, you’re shooting for a goal post that’s going to be moving, so get that cleared first.
Work out what you want your website to be able to do. Do you want just a pretty brochure which is what our previous website was? Or do you want something that’s more engaging that allows people to actually engage with your business directly through the website which is now what we are doing so people can get in touch with us? And do you need a website that you’re going to be able to look after yourself, have an involvement in looking out or you’re going to completely outsource? now ours is a mixture. So we have Liza’s team continuing to look after our website while at the same time, we can engage with the back-end and do these things, so that was key for us. I’m a techie person. I like to have my hands on that, but at the same time I get a slap across the wrist from Liza if I do the wrong thing with it and stay clear of it.

Liza: [Laughs]

Marcus: So it’s a healthy balance and that was very key. The things to look out for is if you’re going to have a secure website which we highly recommend, just the processes of transitioning from your insecure to secure your content. Testing everything, make the time to test everything. The team that the developers and Liza they spent time testing it, you need to test it yourself. And things do happen even with the best intention, you’ll miss things. So take the time to go through everything you have put on, your forms especially. Read your content that you put up there. Don’t just take it for granted because when you do, you’re actually going to engage and understand what you’re putting out there better and you’re in a better place to actually make the most out of your website now that you’ve got all this stuff refreshed.
So take the step and have a go, and just start the process of working out what you want to do, and then go through it. It doesn’t need to be a million-dollar site. It can be as good as ours just half that price, actually less, a lot less.

Liza: [Laughs] Thank you, Marcus. Really appreciated you taking the time and just sharing your experience. I wish you all the best with your business and thank you for sharing your journey with us.

Marcus: You’re most welcome, Liza. Thank you for all your help as well.

Liza: Cheers!

Marcus: Cheers!

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In the 2nd month of launching the site, we have 10X our traffic and double the quality leads we are getting. It has been our biggest month in the clinic so far.

I think we came to a point where it was clearly evident early on that we couldn’t really do or if we were going to do what we wanted to do with the old website, it’s going to cost us a lot of money, whereas I think, the solution that you came up with was with a new website which was cost effective and it’s certainly achieving the results that we wanted.

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